Do You Find The Man-Child Movies Funny?

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I had the pleasure of spending the evening at my girlfriends house over the weekend and got to do something I can't do at home: watch television. We stumbled on both Kill Bill's on Spike TV and watched it from beginning to end. Apparently the producers of Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star thought hat would be the perfect vehicle to advertise their movie because I am not exaggerating we watched a really insipid commercial for it several dozen times. My girlfriend asked me if I knew anything about it and I half-guessed that "Adam Sandler had something to do with it", which turned out to be right.

That made me think about the popularity of these types of movies over the last two decades. Movies that completely center around an ostensibly physically adult male acting socially, mentally, and/or emotionally retarded and everyone around him is befuddled by his behaviour. Pauly Shore, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, Tom Green, Chris Farley, Rob Schneider have all basically made it their career. Steve Carrell and John C. Reilly seem to desperately want to involve themselves in it. But why? I don't think I have ever seen most of these films, but from a distance they all seem painfully similar and lacking any real wit or story. Are these movies actually funny? Is there something I am missing about the modern day village idiot?

 

[Amaris]

I had the pleasure of spending the evening at my girlfriends house over the weekend and got to do something I can't do at home: watch television. We stumbled on both Kill Bill's on Spike TV and watched it from beginning to end. Apparently the producers of Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star thought hat would be the perfect vehicle to advertise their movie because I am not exaggerating we watched a really insipid commercial for it several dozen times. My girlfriend asked me if I knew anything about it and I half-guessed that "Adam Sandler had something to do with it", which turned out to be right.

That made me think about the popularity of these types of movies over the last two decades. Movies that completely center around an ostensibly physically adult male acting socially, mentally, and/or emotionally retarded and everyone around him is befuddled by his behaviour. Pauly Shore, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, Tom Green, Chris Farley, Rob Schneider have all basically made it their career. Steve Carrell and John C. Reilly seem to desperately want to involve themselves in it. But why? I don't think I have ever seen most of these films, but from a distance they all seem painfully similar and lacking any real wit or story. Are these movies actually funny? Is there something I am missing about the modern day village idiot?

It varies. If the village idiot is a man child with a heart of gold, we tend to root for him as the underdog against a knowledgeable and more cynical enemy. I guess the idea is that we would want to behave like children (or adolescents) well into adulthood, and get away with it. I'm a fan of Chris Farley, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey in this regard.

On the other hand, you have the man-child characters by the likes of John C. Reilly, Tom Green and so on. I'm not a fan of these characters, as they're usually mean spirited and lacking in any redeeming value. The former characters (the ones with the heart of gold) let us see that a book can't be judged solely by it's cover, while the latter characters (mean spirited) are merely to be laughed at for their stupidity. For me, that second group is a negative, and so I don't bother with them.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I would say that guys like Chris Farley, Adam Sandler (in his early work), Steve Carrell in The 40 Year Old Virgin and Jim Carrey's early work are the best examples of the genre. The characters are immature, but mean well. They can be charming in their own way.

Then you have characters played by Tom Green, Will Ferrell or John C. Reilly who are just awful. I can't root for them because they often come across not as immature but well-intentioned, but as cruel and reveling in their obnoxious behavior. They don't care about who they hurt, as long as they have a good time. For perfect examples see Ferrell and Reilly in Step-Brothers and Ferrell's small role in The Wedding Crashers.

Third, there's guys like Pauly Shore, Rob Schneider and Kevin James - whose characters aren't mean-spirited, but just completely stupid with no other qualities. It's not that they're immature with hearts of gold or immature and cruel. They're just morons who don't want to be anything other than morons. Most often the characters themselves know how stupid they are and just don't care. Not much for me to like in that kind of characterization.

I would also include a fourth style of this genre - one epitomized by Seth Rogen movies. Here we're supposed to see the man as completely immature and then hate him for it. The women are always more intelligent, more sophisticated and generally "better" people who we're supposed to root for. I think the intention is to make the female characters look better in comparison but it ALWAYS backfires because it doesn't make them look good. It makes the women look weak because their always up against blithering imbeciles. If you want characters to be strengthened by comparing them to other characters, those other characters need to be equally strong and likeable.

So, the whole "man-child" genre can work, if it's done right. It just very seldom is.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm not sure this is anything new. Didn't Lou Costello and Jerry Lewis play man-children for decades?

Heck, I suspect this kind of comedy dates back to Fatty Arbuckle . . . .

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Indeed, these movies exist as vehicles to permit performers who've built their careers on being clowns...to be clowns.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I like them when they're funny; when they aren't, I don't.

 

[Greg Cox]

And then, of course, there were The Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy, none of whom were exactly playing mature adult males . . .

 

[milo bloom]

I'm with the posters that say they have their place. If the character has the heart-of-gold thing going for them, where they know their limitations but still keep trying because they care (Tommy Boy comes to mind, even though Farley's character had a needed skill, he just needed Spade's character to help him find it) then that's fine. It's the Paul Blart, Mall Cop crap I have no use for.

I do confess to sorta liking the moral of Step-Brothers though. This is one of those cases where I'd be all for a remake, but with the mean-ness cranked down about 80%. What I liked was how in the end, the boys learned to grow up, but they also had to remember how to have a little fun in life when they saved that event with their music playing. That's a pretty good lesson right there, one I wouldn't mind showing to kids if the rest of the flick weren't so rough on the ears and such.